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Managing Stressors to Avoid Burnout: Work-Life Balance & Being Healthy

STRESSOR: WORK-LIFE BALANCE

“For me, a really really big one—and I know a lot of elementary school teachers and charter people are guilty of this—is having email and Class Dojo or some other parent communication system on their phone. I refuse to be logged in on my phone. For me, personally, in my experience there is nothing that cannot wait until I walk in the door in the morning. I know a lot of my colleagues disagree with me on that one, but in my opinion, and in my experience, if a parent's mad at me, it can wait until I'm on the clock. I've never had an experience where anything needed to be answered on a Saturday. I've never had an experience where anything needed to be answered desperately at 6 pm on a Tuesday night. If they're mad about something, or if there's something wrong and someone needs me desperately, administration has my cell phone. They would call me if there was a crisis emergency. Somebody would call me.”

“I don't keep my email on my phone and I think that's a really big one. I also don't take my work laptop home every night. I will use my personal computer on the weekends to do my slides and things like that, but then I log out.”

“I take the entire summer off. I am very fortunate that I am able to not work during the summer and I travel. I visit friends (….) I go to concerts.”

STRESSOR: BEING HEALTHY

“Sleeping is a big one (…) not only for my physical health (…) but also I'm grumpy if I don't.”

“I have to eat (…) This morning, I looked at the kids and I was like, ‘Are you okay if I finish my breakfast while I do morning meeting?’ They're like, ‘Yeah, that's fine.’ ‘Great! I’m going to eat my oatmeal while I take attendance.’ I have to. It's not the end of the world if they go home and complain that their teacher (…) was eating their oatmeal. I can call that mom and I can explain why I was eating my oatmeal.”

“I'm lucky. I have people in my life that force me to sometimes take care of myself.”